Thank
you, Mr. President. I am heartened to see so many nations represented
at such a high level, as well as so many non-governmental organizations.

But
first, let me thank and pay tribute to the people and nation
of Senegal for giving the world a gift twice over: in the free
and fair elections which inspired the continent and impressed
the world; and in the commitment to education you have displayed
by hosting this forum. It is a commitment you have sustained
since your earliest years as an independent nation.

Excellencies,
ladies and gentlemen,

Dear colleagues and friends,

This
conference is a test of all of us who call ourselves the international
community. Ten years ago, at Jomtien, we set ourselves the goal
of basic Education for All. We are still far from achieving
it. Let us start this conference by resolving not to rest until
we have made it a reality.

As
we open the 21st century, we do have some achievements to celebrate.
Educational levels in many developing countries have climbed
dramatically. The percentage of adult illiterates in the world
has declined steadily. An explosive innovation of technology
has brought new learning opportunities to millions. We have
reached a new level of capacity-building and understanding in
our work to attain basic education for all.

And
yet, at least 880 million adults worldwide are still illiterate,
most of them women. A yawning digital divide exists between
those who have access to new technology and those who have not.
A quarter of a billion children work, in often hazardous or
unhealthy conditions. And according to conservative estimates,
more than 110 million school-age children are not attending
school.

These
millions of children are not only being denied something many
of us take for granted; they are being denied a fundamental
human right spelt out in international instruments their Governments
have signed on to -- such as the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child: the right
to education.

What
is more, the communities where these children live are not only
being denied a future labour force of healthy, literate and
employable citizens: they are being denied the foundations for
development and a future place in the global economy. They are,
in fact, being denied the future itself.

The
most tragic and unjust dimension of this state of affairs is
this: of the more than 110 million children who should be in
school and who are not, two thirds are girls. For them, the
denial of human rights has struck twice over. For they are also
denied something proclaimed on the first page of the United
Nations Charter: the equal rights of men and women.

From
issues of morality to issues of mortality, the denial of girls'
rights begins in early childhood. When a choice has to be made
between educating a boy or a girl, girls are more likely to
be kept at home. When a family income needs to be supplemented,
girls are more likely to be sent to work. Even when girls do
go to school, they will often have to do housework at the expense
of homework. When they become pregnant, school policies force
them to drop out. When parents consider their daughters' future,
they often see education as a hindrance, not a help, to successful
marriage and motherhood. And when catastrophe strikes -- whether
in the form of illness or conflict, displacement or hardship
- women and girls, from 65 to five years old, are more likely
to shoulder the burden of keeping family and household together..

Nothing
illustrates their burden more amply than the impact of HIV/AIDS.
Girls are more likely than boys to care for a sick family member
and help keep the household running. Deprived of basic schooling,
they are denied information about how to protect themselves
against the virus. Without the benefits of an education, they
risk being forced into early sexual relations, and thereby becoming
infected. Thus, they pay many times over the deadly price of
not getting an education.

But
by the same token, education is the tool whereby we can break
the vicious cycle of AIDS and ignorance. The key to all the
locks that are keeping girls out of school --from poverty to
inequality to conflict - lies in basic education for all.

It
is often said that education empowers girls by building up their
confidence and enabling them to make informed decisions about
their lives. For those of us who attend conferences such as
these, that statement may seem to be about university degrees,
income, or career fulfilment. But for most of the world's girls,
it is about something much more fundamental. It is about escaping
the trap of child labour, or the perils of going into the labour
of childbirth while still a child yourself; about managing pregnancies
so that they do not threaten your health, your livelihood or
even your life; about ensuring that your children, in their
turn, are guaranteed their right to education.

It
is about being able to earn an income when women before you
earned none; about protecting yourself against violence and
enjoying rights which women before you never knew they had;
about taking part in economic and political decision-making;
finally, it is about educating your children to do the same,
and their children after them. It is about ending a spiral of
poverty and impotence which previously seemed to have no end.

No
development strategy is better than one that involves women
as central players. It has immediate benefits for nutrition,
health, savings and reinvestment at the family, community and
ultimately country level. In other words, educating girls is
a social development policy that works. It is a long-term investment
that yields an exceptionally high return.

It
is also, I would venture, a tool for preventing conflict and
building peace. From generation to generation, women have passed
on the culture of peace. When ethnic tensions cause or exacerbate
conflict, women tend to build bridges rather than walls. When
considering the impact and implications of war and peace, women
think not only of themselves, but about the future of their
children. Educating girls to build an empowered electorate of
women could be the most cost-effective form of defence spending.

Clearly,
spending is required to meet this challenge. There is no substitute
for good teachers who have to be paid, and good textbooks which
have to be bought. But spending is not all that is required.
We need to remove the constraints that lead parents to keep
their daughters from getting a basic education. We must ensure
that girls are free and fit to make the best of learning opportunities
by raising them in a sound, safe and stable environment. We
must involve the community and family in quality, non-formal
learning approaches for girls who are prevented from attending
school in a formal setting, and build bridges to allow them
to continue in the formal system. Once girls are in school,
we must work to ensure that school prepares them for life, by
developing curricula and materials, and by encouraging attitudes
among teachers, that emphasize the life skills these girls will
need.

And
we must give them access to another skill they will need for
life in the 21st century: the use of information technology,
which has become an indispensable tool for learning, communicating
and development.

But
the first step is for societies to recognize that educating
girls is not an option; it is a necessity. For many families
faced with immediate household priorities, acting on that recognition
will mean stark choices. We must ensure families get the support
they need from their local communities and Governments, backed
by the wider world, so that they can educate all their children
-- girls and boys alike.

There
are already encouraging examples of such support -- local and
national, intergovernmental and non-governmental -- and several
of them are here in Africa. Guinea has reduced the domestic
burdens of girls, by providing wells and mechanical mills. Malawi
has cut the costs of schooling for parents by eliminating school
fees and abolishing compulsory uniforms. In Ghana, the Alliance
for Community Action runs a Girls' Education Credit Scheme to
enable parents to pay for textbooks and tuition.

There
are many examples from other parts of the developing world too.
In Cambodia, floating schools have been created for populations
that move their boat homes with the seasons, with a double school
shift that makes it easier for girls to attend. In some areas
of Brazil, the Bolsa Escola programme pays a monthly scholarship
into a family account that can only be drawn upon only after
the child -- boy or girl -- has successfully completed four
years of schooling. In Bangladesh, an NGO known as BRAC has
opened schools with high girls' enrolment in the poorest rural
communities, where previously schools did not exist. In the
Pakistani province of Baluchistan, 14,000 girls attend schools
taught by women teachers from their own communities, thanks
to the Baluchistan Mobile Female Teaching Training Programme.
In fact, I am pleased that we have with us at this conference
a woman from Baluchistan who began her career as a teacher.
Today, she serves as Pakistan's Minister of Education.

These
are indeed inspiring examples, and I could give you many, many
more. But they would still not be enough. We need to support
and harness the ingenuity of these approaches to make them functional
at the national level. We need all those with the power to change
things to come together in a global alliance for girls' education.
That is why the United Nations is launching a new global initiative
to educate girls. I have chosen to launch it here in Dakar,
for this initiative must be an integral part of the global movement
of Education for All, the motto and the raison-d'être of this
conference.

The
goals of this initiative are simple to express: to demonstrably
narrow the gender gap in primary and secondary education by
2005; to ensure that by 2015, all children everywhere -- boys
and girls alike -- will be able to complete primary schooling
education; and to ensure that by then, boys and girls will have
equal access to all levels of education.

Implementing
these goals will require all our sensitivity, imagination, and
determination. It will, indeed, be a test of our entire international
community.

It
will be a test of the United Nations system and its ability
to support countries. More than a dozen UN entities, led by
UNICEF, are involved so far; it is an open partnership. I am
sure more will join us soon, for no entity is unaffected by
this issue. We must make sure that we all work together smoothly,
without or obstructing each other's efforts.

By
next year, with each of the main countries affected, we aim
to have a plan of action which will promote gender equality
and sensitivity in all aspects of education -- in enrolment
policies and practices; in the curriculum; in teachers' attitudes
and the composition of the teaching community; in a learning
environment that is safe and free of sexism and sexual harassment;
in information, skills and teachers' support that enable girls
to make choices in reproductive health and HIV/AIDS prevention;
and in access to new technologies.

No
matter how good the plan, it will not succeed without political
will in each of the countries concerned. And political will
must be underpinned by resources. We will help countries free
up funds for girls' education by advising and assisting them
on reaping optimal benefits from development cooperation, policy
and education reform, and on relief from the crippling burden
of debt repayments.

We
will also, I hope, make educating girls an early test of UNITeS,
the UN's new corps of high-tech volunteers. This consortium,
which I announced in my Millennium Report, is designed to train
groups in developing countries in the uses and opportunities
of information technology.

But
the UN can do nothing single-handed. We must build and expand
partnerships with Governments, civil society and the private
sector. The initiative will be a test for all of them.

It
will be a test for all Governments in developing countries --
a test of their willingness to make girls' education a real
priority. And it will be a test of donor countries -- a test
of their leadership in mobilizing resources.

It will be a test for non-governmental organizations, and for
their new generation of activists enabled by the Internet. Individual
NGOs have made remarkable contributions towards education in
many countries, and they have now joined in a global campaign
for education. Today, I say to the NGO community: we cannot
win the battle to educate girls without your expertise, your
energy and your expansive reach. And I promise you: your views
will be heard here too.

Similarly,
the challenge will be a test of the private sector. Already,
business is working in partnership with the United Nations to
promote good practices in the areas of environment, labour standards
and human rights. Foundations like those of Ted Turner and Bill
and Melinda Gates are contributing millions to reproductive
health initiatives and vaccination campaigns in the developing
world. We need their support in education to sustain the advances
they have helped achieve in health.

The
information technology industry recognizes the need to complement
the next generation of software with a new generation of savoir-faire.
This industry has an enormous role to play in education. It
also needs educated people, as both producers and consumers.
Educating girls is therefore a natural cause for it to adopt.
Should anyone in it be looking for an entry point, the UNITeS
high-tech volunteer corps would most certainly welcome their
support.

Finally,
the initiative will be a test for communities and families --
a test of their understanding that education is a help, not
a hindrance, in building a strong and healthy family structure
and improving a family's fortunes. That it is the key for enabling
succeeding generations to succeed.

Ladies
and Gentlemen,

As
we meet in Dakar today, let us look to one of this city's most
celebrated daughters, who had to start by defying the odds against
her as a girl. I mean Mariama Bâ. She was educated 60 years
ago against the will of her family, but with the encouragement
of one good teacher who believed in her. She went on to a teachers'
training college and achieved the highest exam score in the
whole of what was then French West Africa. She became in her
turn an outstanding teacher, and also wrote Une si longue lettre
-- a novel which has been called the most deeply felt presentation
of the female condition in African fiction. Even today, almost
20 years after her death, she inspires three generations of
women throughout Africa and the world by her ethos and her example.

As
Mariama Bâ said not long before she died: it is families that
make up the nation, and it is among the children that the nation
recruits its leaders.

The
aspirations I have expressed on behalf of girls today apply
to all children in every nation. These aspirations are at the
heart of this conference, dedicated to the goal of Education
for All. They are linked to issues such as quality, inequality
and financing, which you will be discussing over these three
days. They are expressed in the Framework for Action which you
will adopt at this Forum, and which UNESCO and its partners
will support and follow up. They form part of the recommendations
I have made to world leaders when they gather for the Millennium
Summit in September. Because the key to empowering succeeding
generations lies in educating children today.

That
is the test our international community faces. That is the test
we must pass. And we shall pass it only if children all over
the world can pass the tests of basic education, and go on to
pass the tests of life.